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Trycia 2022-03-14 14:12:22
The "enemy" of the public
Ending Thought 1: The death at the end is inexplicable. After watching the gangster movie, I was betrayed by the woman walking next to me. The woman who was abused pointed a gun at the back halfway down the street. After falling to the ground, people swarmed up. The detective listened to the last...
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Mikel 2022-04-19 09:01:24
Public Enemy: A Half Third Person Biography
In The Public Enemy, you're not reading a novel, you're reading half a third-person biography. Don't expect to read any thrilling stories from it. There are no moments of life and death that differ by the slightest, and there are no strange encounters arranged by God. There are only real actions of...
Peter DeFaria
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[Purvis and Baum are listening in on a wiretapped call]
Agent Carter Baum: This is a phone conversation from a car dealership twenty-seven minutes ago. Harry Berman.
[He pushes down the needle to play back an acetate disk]
John Dillinger's voice: When you drop it, leave the keys on the floorboard.
Harry Berman's voice: I got a DeSoto.
John Dillinger's voice: Okay.
[Purvis takes off his headphones]
Melvin Purvis: How did we get to Berman?
Agent Carter Baum: Off the Dillinger coat. The coat was bought in Cicero, Illinois, a few doors down from Berman's dealership. Now we know Berman. He's been supplying cars to the Syndicate since Capone. When Dillinger bought that coat, he must've been at Berman's switching cars.
Melvin Purvis: Soon as they call to drop the DeSoto, we'll tail it. I want men on this, around the clock.
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[Hoover is at a Senate Appropriation Committee hearing]
Senator Kenneth McKellar: Why do we need this?
J. Edgar Hoover: Because criminals flee in fast automobiles across state lines, thereby defeating local jurisdiction because there is no federal police force to stop them.
Senator Kenneth McKellar: By my tally, your bureau wants to spend more taxpayer's dollars catching crooks, than what the crooks you catch stole in the first place.
J. Edgar Hoover: Well that's ridiculous. The Bureau has apprehended kidnappers and bank robbers who have stolen up to and in excess of...
Senator Kenneth McKellar: Really?
[Hoover stops midsentence]
Senator Kenneth McKellar: How many have you apprehended?
J. Edgar Hoover: We have arrested and arraigned 213 wanted felons.
Senator Kenneth McKellar: No, I mean *you*, Director Hoover.
J. Edgar Hoover: Well, as Director, I administer.
Senator Kenneth McKellar: How many have you arrested, personally?
[long pause as Hoover stares at McKellar]
J. Edgar Hoover: I have never arrested anybody.
[Other men in the chamber gasp in shock]
Senator Kenneth McKellar: You've never arrested anybody?
J. Edgar Hoover: Well of course not. I'm an administrator...
Senator Kenneth McKellar: With no field experience. You are shockingly unqualified, aren't you, sir? You have never personally conducted a criminal investigation in the field in your life. I think you're a front. I think your prowess as a lawman is a myth, created from the hoopla of headlines by Mr. Suydam, your publicist there. Crimebuster? G-Man? You're setting yourself up as a Czar? That's running wild in my estimation.
J. Edgar Hoover: A *crime* is what runs wild...
Senator Kenneth McKellar: If this country requires a bureau such as yours, I question whether you are the person fit to run it.
J. Edgar Hoover: [getting angry] Well I will not be judged by a kangaroo court of venal politicians...
Senator Kenneth McKellar: Your appropriation increase is denied.
[taps his gavel, signifying the end of the session; Hoover and his aides get up and leave]
J. Edgar Hoover: Feed the following to Walter Winchell: "McKellar is a Neanderthal, and he is on a personal vendetta to destroy me." We will not contest him in his committee. We need to fight him on the front page. Where's John Dillinger?
